The Apotheosis of Abstraction
July 19, 2005
At the end of the tour of the Capitol Building, our guide.. a bespectacled woman with white hair.. told us her personal experience on 9-11. Since we were standing in the midst of the cellar to the Capitol, surrounded by other groups and people talking loudly, it was difficult to hear.. but our guide raised her voice and told us what I am sure she tells every group.
She had been leading a group on the morning of 9-11 when they were suddenly ordered to evacuate. She told us that she will never forget coming out of the Capitol Building and the sight of the security guards waving their arms and yelling at the top of their voice that everyone must run, run for their lives and get as far away as possible. Before running, she looked back to get one last look at the white dome of the Capitol, shining brilliantly on that September morning. To the southeast smoke was rising from the Pentagon attack. Her husband worked at the Pentagon.. he was not present that day, but she knew some of his friends would be killed.
This brief recollection was all by way of explaining the need for increased security and apologies for the accompanying hassles.. but it was also her message from the heart, and thus moving. I could imagine that final backward glance at the white dome, and the unbelievable panicked thought that this could be the final glance at that proud landmark.
The Capitol still stands, and its white dome glistens for thousands of visitors every day. This, however, was my day to get inside that dome.. to see it again from the inside. The tour is limited to the Rotunda and the Old Hall of the House.. we were strictly forbidden to wander off on our own, which was understandable since just down a corridor on this or that side the business of the Senate or House of Representatives was going on.
Inside the dome, high up directly over our heard, was the painted Apotheosis of Washington. Its central feature, as the title might lead one to guess, is the welcome into heaven of George Washington, still dressed in his military threads. On the face of it, it is a somewhat unlikely theme.. but it fits within the general metaphysical cast of the Capitol. The goal at each turn is to transmute history into high metaphysical concepts.. the concrete details of history rub shoulders with abstract concepts.. abstract concepts coming out on top (literally since the giant statue of Freedom stands on the tip top). The Apotheosis of Washington portrays reality swallowed by abstraction.
Somewhat lower the dome is banded by a row of painted black and white scenes illustrating the progress of America. The first scene is Columbus stepping out on the new world, and after following the band around the dome, one comes to the Wright Brothers discovering flight. Because of the circular nature of the depiction, the beginning and the end are right next to each other.. It is not a simple retelling of history, but one which finds in America.. specifically American technology.. the fulfillment of Columbus and the promise of a new world. The conjunction of Columbus and the Wright Brothers makes the popularity of the National Air and Space Museum understandable.. We were put here to fly and fly fast. An eagle taking wing marks the formal transition between the end and the beginning.
All this was threatened on 9-11.. and by a hijacked airplane. I believe it is still a mystery where that last plane was heading before it crashed in an empty field in Pennsylvania.. but it could well have been here to this white dome. We can be thankful for that failure, but 9-11 also managed to throw all the abstract principles that are symbolized by that reality-swallowing dome into a new searching light. For many that day brought a renewed surge of faith in the liberty and justice of America.. for many others it gave rise to new questions about the concrete reality of those principles.. whether those principles, those words, have swallowed our ability to see the world as it is.
I can say for myself that I am conscious of the difference in the way I see all these symbols.. different than when I last walked in here, in the summer of 2000, when the crowds still lined up disorderedly shaded by scraggly trees behind the Capitol and waited their turn to walk in.
